Teens Posting 'Cutting' Videos on YouTube

Teens Posting 'Cutting' Videos on YouTube

The YouTube videos are disturbing -- images of teens with their
arms bleeding and scarred where they sliced into themselves with a razor
blade or other sharp object; poetry about pain, loneliness and
hopelessness.

"My secret is my blade, it is my obsession, it is my dark secret,
when I am empty I bleed, when I am sad I bleed, when I have no hope I
bleed," reads the text of one such video.

Researchers report this as evidence of an alarming new trend: Teens
posting videos on YouTube that depict "cutting," in which troubled
adolescents use a razor blade or other sharp object to dig into their
skin and draw blood, or other forms of self-injury such as embedding
objects under the skin or burning themselves.

By sharing the sometimes graphic images with other vulnerable youths,
the videos may make the behavior seem more normal and even prompt some
teens to try it, the researchers noted.

"Some individuals who view this, if they are vulnerable and if they
are regularly and repeatedly viewing these types of videos, it could be a
virtual community in which self-injury could be reinforced and getting
help is not always conveyed," said study author Stephen Lewis, an
assistant professor of psychology at the University of Guelph in
Ontario, Canada.

The study was released online Feb. 21 and will appear in the March print issue of Pediatrics.